Elon Musk said of the proliferation of contractors: ‘We’re going to scrub the barnacles on that front. It’s pretty crazy. You’ve got barnacles on barnacles.’
Photograph: John Raoux/AP

Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, told employees on Monday the company was undergoing a “thorough reorganization” as it contends with questions over its production schedule and two crashes involving its electric cars.

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Musk said in an email that as part of the reorganization the company was “flattening the management structure to improve communication, combining functions where sensible and trimming activities that are not vital to the success of our mission”. Tesla confirmed the veracity of the email, which was disclosed by the Wall Street Journal.

On an earnings call earlier this month, Musk said the company was “going to conduct sort of a reorganization restructuring of the company … this month and make sure we’re well set up to achieve that goal”.

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He added: “The number of sort of third-party contracting companies that we’re using has really gotten out of control, so we’re going to scrub the barnacles on that front. It’s pretty crazy. You’ve got barnacles on barnacles. So there’s going to be a lot of barnacle removal.”

Tesla will still hire “to support the Model 3 production ramp and future product development”, Musk wrote in the email.

Investors gave a rare rebuke to Musk after he cut off analysts on the earnings call who asked about profit potential, sending shares down 5% despite promises that production of the troubled Model 3 was on track.

In the latest of two reported crashes that have drawn attention, a Tesla Model S sedan was traveling at 60mph on Friday night when it hit a fire truck stopped at a red light in South Jordan, Utah, about 20 miles south of Salt Lake City, police said on Monday.

A National Transportation Safety Board spokesman, Keith Holloway, said “at this point it doesn’t appear that NTSB is investigating”. The Tesla driver suffered a broken ankle and was taken to a hospital while the firefighter was not injured, police said. Witnesses said the Tesla did not brake, police said, adding it was unknown if the autopilot feature was engaged.

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“Tesla has not yet received any data from the car and thus does not know the facts of what occurred, including whether autopilot was engaged,” the company said in a statement on Monday.

The NTSB said last week it was investigating a Tesla accident in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on 8 May that killed two teenagers and injured another. It is the agency’s fourth active investigation into crashes involving the company’s electric vehicles.

Autopilot, a form of advanced cruise control, handles some driving tasks and warns those behind the wheel they are always responsible for the vehicle’s operation, Tesla has said. On 2 May, a US traffic safety regulator contradicted Tesla’s claim that the agency had found that its autopilot technology significantly reduced crashes.

Tesla shares dipped 0.3% to $300.20 on Monday.

• This article was amended on 15 May 2018 because an earlier version referred to two crashes involving electric self-driving cars. The cars were electric, but not self-driving.